José Real-Dato,Borbála Göncz, and György Lengyel
4.1 Introduction
European integration can be described as a process of reallocation of policy-making competencies between member states and supranational institutions.
Since the Treaty of Rome, and following subsequent treaties and reforms, decision-making processes in many policy areas have moved from the traditional state sovereignty to intergovernmental and supranational arenas (Börzel 2005; Wessels and Kielhorn 1999; Schmitter 1996). Nevertheless, research on citizens’attitudes towards the Europeanization of specific policy areas has been less frequent than that concerning general support for European integration. Only recently has research on this topic been under-taken, mostly interested in explaining the factors determining public opinion towards the Europeanization of specific policy domains (i.e. Dalton and Eichenberg 1998; Vössing 2005; Eichenberg and Dalton 2007), the structure of the European political space according to specific policy preferences (Gabel and Anderson 2002), and on the role of the outputs of Europeanized policies in fostering a European identity (Kritzinger 2005).
There are fewer studies on elites’preferences concerning the Europeaniza-tion of specific policy domains, mainly as a consequence of the scarcity of data.1Some exceptions are Wessels and Kielhorn (1999), who analysed the
1 The survey among members of national parliaments conducted in 1996 in eleven EU countries within the umbrella of the Political Representation in Europe research project included a question of whether a number of policy areas (seventeen) should be decided at the national or at the European level (‘European Study of Members of Parliament 1996’ Core questionnaire <http://
www.wzb.eu/~wessels/Downloads/Quest&Codebooks/CORE-MNP1.pdf> (accessed 18 December 2011)). Similarly, the survey conducted by EOS Gallup Europe also in 1996 on behalf of the
driving forces behind the Europeanization of national policy competencies, and the differences in preferences among policy areas and countries, and types of elites; and Hooghe (2003), who compared public and political elites’ pre-ferences on policy Europeanization, and attempted to explain the variation and underpinning logic.
In this chapter, we follow the line of these previous works, believing that the study of specific policy preferences has the virtue of providing‘a more fine-grained measure’(Hooghe 2003: 283) of national elites’ views of the European integration process. The reasons behind national elites’ support of the transfer of former national (sub-national) powers to supranational institutions where their influence on decision making is lower or uncertain constitute a major puzzle when studying European integration. Besides this, it is useful to explore whether patterns of support differ according to policy area. These differences can be seen as an expression of the multidimen-sional nature of the forces and conflicts behind the process of European integration. In this respect, this chapter aims to contribute to the debate on the configuration of the European political space of contestation (Gabel and Anderson 2002; Marks and Steenbergen 2002; Hix 1999).
The elite survey of the IntUne project provides the necessary data with which to explore these questions. In addition, compared to previous studies, it adds new value in three aspects. First, it allows us to compare the views of political elites (national MPs) with those of economic elites, an aspect not dealt with by previous works, and where difference in preferences over Europeanization between the two types of elites would suggest the impact of political authority. Second, we are able to contrast attitudes in the short term with those in the long term in order to look for different time frames concerning the support of policy-making Europeanization. Finally, it enables us to explain patterns of support using not only individual but also country-level variables.
The rest of the chapter is structured as follows. First we offer a description of national elites’preferences concerning the Europeanization of a number of policy areas covered by the IntUne elite survey. Then, in order to account for such preferences, we review the main theories explaining support of policy-making Europeanization and set a number of propositions, which are subsequently tested and discussed in the corresponding sections. The chapter ends with a brief summary of the mainfindings in our analysis.
European Commission among several groups of national elites (‘top decision makers’) in thefifteen member states (Spence 1997) included a question on fourteen policy areas, where respondents had to choose on a ten-point scale whether each policy area should be dealt with‘exclusively at the national or regional level’or‘exclusively at the European level’.
4.2 Descriptive Analysis of Policy-Making Preferences
In this section we briefly examine our dependent variables. Two types of questions in the IntUne elite survey refer to preferences concerning the Eur-opeanization of policy making; one relates to the preferred level of policy making, ranging from the sub-national level to the full allocation of decision-making authority to European Union institutions, with regard to a number of policy areas: namely, unemployment, immigration, environment, fighting crime, health care, and taxation. The second type of question examined relates to the agreement with the fulllong term(within ten years)Europeanizationof taxation, social security, and foreign policy. Despite some limitations, the catalogue of variables covers the spectrum of activities performed by contem-porary states—basic sovereignty and security functions (foreign policy, fight-ing crime, and immigration), economic regulation and distribution (taxation), welfare (health care, social security, and unemployment), and activities con-cerning post-materialist values (environment). Thus, the preferences of national elites in each of these policy areas may be used as a proxy for the preferences of national elites on each of those generalfields of public activity.
63.2
National or sub-national Shared Europeanized
Figure 4.1. Preferred level of government in policy areas (political and economic elites) (valid percentages)
Note: the valid number of cases (N) by variables are: Environment = 1988; Immigration = 1992; Fight against crime
= 1990; Taxation = 1988; Fighting unemployment = 1987; Health care = 1989.
In order to have a more parsimonious view of the preferred level of authority over policy making, we have recoded the variables and regrouped the original categories, which comprised different combinations of national, regional, and European levels of government, into three categories: (1) authority only at national or sub-national level, (2) shared authority between national/sub-national and EU levels, and (3) full authority at the supranational/sub-national/EU level (Figure 4.1).2
Looking at the distribution of preferences along these categories, there seems to be an underlying pattern regarding levels of government preferences depend-ing on policy area: national and sub-national levels are clearly preferred in health care, unemployment, and taxation. In contrast, participants clearly show a preference for the Europeanization of environment and immigration policies.
Finally, despite the fact that 40.6 per cent prefers thefight against crime to remain under national and/or sub-national authority, the proportion of those preferring shared or full Europeanized control shows that there is a general feeling about the importance of the EU level of government in dealing with this policy area. These results are very much in line with Wessels and Kielhorn’s (1999: 177) hypothesis that the level of Europeanization of a policy area depends on the cross-border character of the problem it addresses—more globalized problems, such as environmental issues and immigration, are more acceptable as areas to be dealt with at the EU level. We examine this in greater detail in the following paragraphs.
Factor analysis (Table 4.1.) confirms this underlying pattern regarding levels of government preferences depending on policy area both on the whole sample and by type of elite. Although the factor solutions are not quite robust, Table 4.1. Factor analysis of level of policy-making variables
All Political elites Economic elites Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 1 Factor 2
Fighting unemployment 0.030 0.448 0.170 0.431 0.126 0.487
Immigration policy 0.440 0.141 0.454 0.256 0.468 0.282
Environment policy 0.845 0.129 0.782 0.112 0.782 0.097
Fight against crime 0.396 0.178 0.416 0.325 0.445 0.222
Health care policy 0.057 0.572 0.087 0.482 0.150 0.566
Taxation 0.105 0.515 0.244 0.484 0.255 0.557
Explained variance 33.415 32.055 35.624
KMO (sig.) 0.734 0.734 0.718
Note: method of extraction: principal axis factoring; method of rotation: oblimin for the whole sample (factors are correlated); varimax for subsamples (factors are uncorrelated).
2We have also considered as missing values the‘none of them’responses.
factor loadings reveal the same underlying structure. In thefirst factor, envi-ronment policy has the highest loadings, followed by immigration policy, and finallyfighting crime. Policies with high loadings on the second factor are health care, taxation, and unemployment.
These patterns of policy-making preferencesfit into Wessels and Kielhorn’s (1999)‘globalization of problems’hypothesis, and more specifically into the sub-hypothesis about the‘cross-border’(transnational) character of problems.
Respondents favour Europeanization where a policy is related to a problem requiring cooperation between countries. This is clearly the case with envi-ronment and immigration, to which Wessels and Kielhorn also attribute a high cross-border nature (1999: 178). Regarding the fight against crime, recent developments in economic globalization, technologies, and the grow-ing phenomenon of organized crime crossgrow-ing the borders of member states (profiting from freedom of circulation within the EU) have clearly raised awareness of the need for a more coordinated, even common, approach.
Wessels and Kielhorn also expected that a convergence of problems between countries (what they term problem‘load’) (1999: 177–8) would lead to a stronger desire for higher Europeanization, although to a lesser extent than in the case of cross-border problems. Our cross-sectional elite data only allows us to state that significant differences in terms of readiness for the Europeanization of problem solving still exist across countries. Furthermore, preferences for the Europeanization of tackling unemployment––one of the policy areas to which Wessels and Kielhorn attributed a high degree of con-vergence across countries (1999: 178)––are lower than those concerning taxa-tion, a policy area which allegedly has a low‘load’.
This general pattern of differential preferences between policies concerning transnational problems and the other policy areas is generally reproduced within the countries, although there are variations concerning the intensity of preferences according to policy area (Table 4.2). However, in all countries, the percentages of those who favour some kind of Europeanization (full or shared) in policy areas of‘transnational’nature are always higher than those in any of the other policyfields. The only exception is the strong support in France for the Europeanization of taxation, which is even higher than forfighting crime.
Along with these general patterns, there are differences among countries, as can be seen in Table 4.2. For instance, elites in two Baltic countries, Estonia and Lithuania, seem to be more zealous concerning national sovereignty in all policy areas, while French national elites tend to have a more pro-EU standing.
Nevertheless, apart from these outstanding cases, there is much variation between countries according to policy area, which suggests that a more sophisticated analysis is needed to shed light on underlying patterns.
Concerning the type of elite, Figure 4.2 shows how economic elites are on the whole slightly more pro-European than political ones in all policy areas
Immigration Environment Fight crime Unemployment Health care Taxation
N/S S EU N/S S EU N/S S EU N/S S EU N/S S EU N/S S EU
Austria 28.1 16.7 55.3 16.7 20.2 63.2 35.7 19.1 45.2 50.9 14 35.1 85.2 8.7 6.1 56.1 14.9 28.9
Belgium 17.7 19.4 62.9 14.5 26.6 58.9 26.6 40.3 33.1 63.7 25 11.3 70.2 22.6 7.3 44.7 30.9 24.4
Bulgaria 28.2 56.5 15.3 22.8 66.7 10.6 35.4 57.5 7.1 62.9 33.1 4 54.4 40.8 4.8 60 37.6 2.4
Czech republic 27.9 13.9 58.2 31.1 16.4 52.5 54.5 19 26.4 72.7 10.7 16.5 85.2 6.6 8.2 73 9.8 17.2
Denmark 40 13 47 15 13 72 34 29 37 76.3 14 9.7 85 5 10 75.8 7.1 17.2
Estonia 47.3 15.2 37.5 60.4 17.1 22.5 75.9 13.4 10.7 83 8 8.9 93.8 4.5 1.8 86.6 9.8 3.6
France 5.9 47.1 47.1 7 45.2 47.8 23.3 52.6 24.1 35.3 52.1 12.6 53.9 34.8 11.3 19.3 48.7 31.9
Germany 26.3 13.6 60.2 15.3 14.4 70.3 42.4 19.5 38.1 78 11 11 83.1 7.6 9.3 60.2 12.7 27.1
Greece 17.5 60 22.5 14.2 63.3 22.5 36.1 54.6 9.2 39.3 52.5 8.2 50.4 43.7 5.9 44.9 43.2 11.9
Hungary 38 12.4 49.6 15.6 26.2 58.2 32.8 33.6 33.6 65.3 16.5 18.2 76.9 14 9.1 43 26.4 30.6
Italy 15.9 19.8 64.3 19 23.8 57.1 43.7 27.8 28.6 52.4 17.5 30.2 72.2 15.9 11.9 55.6 22.2 22.2
Lithunia 55.1 2.5 42.4 42.4 8.5 49.2 72 3.4 24.6 82.2 0 17.8 86.4 2.5 11 64.4 6.8 28.8
Poland 31.4 55.1 13.6 20 67.5 12.5 23.3 68.3 8.3 52.1 42 5.9 74.2 23.3 2.5 64.2 35 0.8
Portugal 13.3 16.7 70 10 18.3 71.7 32.5 26.7 40.8 47.5 15.8 36.7 74.2 10.8 15 43.3 15.8 40.8
Spain 25 24.3 50.7 26.4 31.1 42.6 36.6 37.9 25.5 65.5 23.6 10.8 76.2 19 4.8 52.7 24.3 23
Slovakia 35.6 11.9 52.5 24.8 24.8 50.4 45.3 22.2 32.5 87.3 5.9 6.8 88.9 5.1 6 88.1 5.9 5.9
United Kingdom 32.9 55.7 11.4 14.3 51.4 34.3 44.3 50 5.7 65.7 28.6 5.7 85.7 11.4 2.9 83.6 13.4 3
Total 28.2 26.2 45.7 21.9 31.2 46.9 40.6 33.7 25.7 63.2 21.9 14.9 75.8 16.6 7.6 58.7 22 19.3
Note: N/S =‘Subnational and national level’; S =‘Shared powers between subnational/European or national/European levels or the three of them’; EU =‘European level’.
24 18 29 27 42 38
Political elite Economic elite Political elite Economic elite Political elite Economic elite Political elite Economic elite Political elite Economic elite Political elite Economic elite
Environment Immigration Fighting
National or sub-national Shared European
Figure 4.2. Preferred level of government in policy areas by type of elite (valid percentages)
Unified tax system Common social security system
Single foreign policy
Strongly in favour
Somewhat in favour Neither against nor in favour
Somewhat against Strongly against
Figure 4.3. Preferences on the Europeanization of three policy areas in 10 years (valid percentages)
Note: the valid number of cases (N) by variables are: unified tax system = 1992; Common Social Security = 1995;
single foreign policy = 1998.
Unified tax system for Europe Common system of social security Single foreign policy
Somewhat in favour Strongly in favour Somewhat in favour Strongly in favour Somewhat in favour Strongly in favour
Austria 36 28.9 31.6 18.4 39.5 44.7
Belgium 38.5 27 39.7 19.8 37.9 57.3
Bulgaria 34.9 36.5 36.5 44.4 28 64.8
Czech Republic 28.1 9.9 29.5 10.7 43.4 31.1
Denmark 22.2 7.1 33 9 40 43
Estonia 30.9 2.7 50 14.5 41.5 50.9
France 23.8 53.3 41.2 37.8 17.4 74.4
Germany 30.2 32.8 29.1 15.4 36.8 50.4
Greece 27.9 50.8 32 57.4 16.1 80.6
Hungary 44.3 27 36.4 44.6 38.5 55.7
Italy 67.5 87.9 90.4
Lithuania 32.8 26.9 39.2 30 40.8 51.7
Poland 41.3 16.5 32.8 30.3 35.5 42.1
Portugal 50.8 17.8 57.1 26.1 40.8 49.2
Spain 49.3 25.7 61.5 23.6 36.5 56.1
Slovakia 26.1 8.4 31.7 18.3 33.6 50.4
United Kingdom 1.4 4.3 1.4 37.1 8.6
Total 31.5 26.9 35.4 29.9 32.8 54.5
except for tackling unemployment. However, differences between the two elite groups are only statistically significant in the case of taxation, health care, and environmental policy making.
With regard to the second type of question (those referring to the preferences of elites concerning the Europeanization of taxation, social security, and foreign policy within the next ten years), the majority of respondents favour Europea-nization in all three policy areas (Figure 4.3). The EuropeaEuropea-nization of foreign policy obtains the greatest support among European elites, while the level of consensus on the policy areas of taxation and social security are somewhat lower.
In all, the general pattern seen for short-term preferences in relation to the Europeanization of policy areas is repeated on the long term within countries, and variation between countries is also found (Table 4.3). Here, the case of the United Kingdom is particularly interesting, in that both types of national elites
22 18 15 14 Unified tax system Common social
security
Single foreign policy
Strongly in favour
Somewhat in favour Neither against nor in favour
Somewhat against Strongly against
Figure 4.4. Preferences on the Europeanization of three policy areas in 10 years by type of elite (valid percentages)
(political and economic) are overwhelmingly against the full Europeanization of social security and taxation, and although somewhat less vehement in their rejection, they are still the elites most against a single foreign policy.
Concerning the type of elite––as with short-term preferences––economic elites are more in favour of the Europeanization within a ten-year term of foreign policy and taxation (Figure 4.4). In contrast, they show a less favour-able attitude towards social security, where political elites have a more positive stance. Again, there are differences across countries and between elite groups across the three policy areas, but less so than for short-term preferences.
4.3 Theories Explaining National Elites’Policy-Making Preferences
The literature on European integration has identified a number of drivers accounting for the process. First, there is the hypothesis that the Europeaniza-tion of policy making can be explained as a result of funcEuropeaniza-tional needs: policy making should be transferred to the European Union in the hope that it contributes to better problem solving or that the subsequent economies of scale produce more efficient results (Alesina, Angeloni, and Schuknecht 2001). This is the rationale behind the functionalist theory of European integration, and it is consistent with the globalization of problems perspec-tive. Similarly, there is the argument that economic internationalization is a driver for European integration. International economic interdependence undermines national governments’ ability to control economic actors and transactions in their own territory (Schmidt 2002: 18), so that it is logical for national elites (mostly economic elites) to favour Europeanization‘in order to have the same conditions of market participation with respect to the structure of regulation, incentives, and the like’(Wessels and Kielhorn 1999: 184), and that this should be mainly in policies directly affecting a country’s economic performance.
An alternative driver to explain policy-making preferences––and one that may be considered to be closely related to the functional explanation––is the instrumental-evaluative argument taken from public opinion research (Gabel 1998; Gabel and Palmer 1995; Eichenberg and Dalton 1993), which is based on the reasoning that people support Europeanization if they can derive direct benefits from the EU. Concerning elites, it is plausible to think that they are more homogeneous as a group than the general public, and that their usually more affluent position makes direct material benefits less important. However, it is possible to apply a ‘sociotropic’extension of this utilitarian argument in their case (Hooghe and Marks 2005)––elites may
evaluate Europeanization of policy making based on the effect they perceive it may have on their countries’welfare, rather than on their own per se. This evaluative judgement may also be extended to the perception of the func-tioning of European institutions compared to national ones (Rohrschneider 2002; Sánchez-Cuenca 2000).
Political attitudes play an important role in shaping the degree of support for the European Union, and perhaps one of the most important attitudes with regard to EU integration is that of ideology. Certainly, the relationship between ideology and positions taken on EU integration has been widely discussed and is part of the debate about the configuration of the European political space (Marks and Steenbergen 2002; Gabel and Anderson 2002).
According to Marks and Steenbergen, four basic standpoints have been distinguished regarding ideology—interpreted in the sense of left–right posi-tioning, ideology is irrelevant to understand anti- or pro-integration positions (a position shared by realist, intergovernmentalist, and neo-functionalist the-ories on EU integration). In this way, elites’preferences on Europeanization should not be influenced by their ideological positions. A second stance is that ideology and integration collapse in one dimension (Tsebelis and Garrett 2000), that is, the politization of the European integration debate implies that actors take the dimensions of national debate to the European level. In this case, variation in preferences on the Europeanization of policy areas would be explained by ideological positions. According to the third approach, the European space is formed by two basic unrelated dimensions (Hix and Lord 1997). Thus, domestic conflict over socio-economic issues cannot be extrapolated to the European level, where the dominant dimension is that of national sovereignty, ranging from independence to integration. The ide-ology dimension would express a cleavage between functional groups, while the national sovereignty dimension involves a cleavage between territorial groups (Marks and Steenbergen 2002: 884). Thus, ideology would not explain variation in preferences on the Europeanization of policy making. Finally, Hooghe and Marks (1999) propose a fourth vision of the European political space. They identify two dimensions: the first runs along the ideological spectrum (left–right), ranging from social democracy to market liberalism;
and the second refers to European integration, ranging from nationalism to supranationalism. According to the authors, these dimensions are related, collapsing into a diagonal dimension with its extremes lying between regu-lated capitalism (encompassing centre-leftist and pro-supranational positions) and neo-liberalism (combining rightist views and an acceptance of European integration limited to minimal regulation––economic and monetary––that allows markets to work more efficiently).
When dealing with political ideology it is also important to take into account the extremeness of ideological positions’ (Aspinwall 2002). Thus, centrist voters would tend to be more open to international interdependence and support European integration on an instrumentalist basis while extreme voters are more likely to reject the idea of the EU, but for different reasons:
extreme left-wing voters see the EU as too much in favour of a liberal free market, while extreme right-wing voters reject the supranational character of the EU.
Along with ideology, identity also arises as a factor to be taken into account in explaining attitudes towards European integration (Hooghe and Marks 2005, 2008; Risse 2006; Herrmann, Risse, and Brewer 2004; Carey 2002; Diez-Medrano and Gutiérrez 2001). Identity issues have gained strength as a defining axis of political conflict, forming a ‘new politics’
dimension along with other issues (Marks, Hooghe, Nelson, and Edwards 2006). To be more precise, the post-functionalist view claims that
dimension along with other issues (Marks, Hooghe, Nelson, and Edwards 2006). To be more precise, the post-functionalist view claims that